The basic mechanism in wireless communication systems for acquiring an uplink traffic channel between a base station and one or more mobile units to transmit data is to provide each mobile unit with a dedicated control channel for exchanging control messages. One such wireless system is the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) based spread spectrum multiple access system. A representation of a dedicated control channel including messages transported on it is shown in FIG. 1. Fixed length control messages are used and a so-called one size fits all approach is utilized to determine the length of control messages. Consequently, the length of the control messages corresponds to the longest message that has to be transported on the dedicated control channel. One such control message is a request for a traffic channel that is typically shorter than the longest control message. These control messages also have headers that indicate the structure and type of control message. Since the request messages have to be packaged into the standard fixed length control message there is overhead. Additionally, if the request messages have to be transmitted frequently to compensate for changing mobile unit traffic requirements and to reduce the adverse impact of losing traffic requests, the wireless system incurs a significant amount of overhead and becomes quite inefficient. The length of the fixed control message also increases latency in conveying the requests to the base station and receiving responses from the base station.